Shades of Truth
by Mari83
Summary: On a quiet Sunday afternoon in 2012 Officer Matt Sung is called to the Cale mansion to investigate a theft… and meets young Logan Cale.
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer**_: Don't own Dark Angel

_**A/N**_: Many thanks to _**Shywr1ter**_ for sacrificing her time for suggestions and boring error-finding. All remaining oddities are mine.

Yes, I know I should finish other stories first, but this is just what happens when my bored brain starts imagining how Logan and Matt Sung might have met the first time… (I'm by no means an expert on antique jewelry or computer-things, hope I didn't mess up)

xxxxxxx

**The Cale Mansion, Sunday, August 5****th****. 2012**

Officer Matt Sung had never imagined he would ever be a guest in the Cale mansion, sitting on their huge leather sofa and drinking genuine, strong coffee that could almost made him forget the depression.

Of course he wasn't their guest, strictly speaking: he here for an investigation, but still, they almost treated him like one of them. Matt, however, with his old, battered wristwatch and tiny two-room flat, was far from belonging to their carefree circles. He didn't even work up here regularly, only volunteering to do extra shifts on Sunday afternoons like this to save the extra money for his little one's first birthday.

The Cales, on the other hand, weren't like most of Seattle's wealthy families, struggling but still so much better off than everybody else. Always influential and with enough resources to help them through the first months after the Pulse, now the they were even better off as Cale Industries provided the technology for the new sector passes.

Politely declining Mr. Cale's offer strengthen his coffee with some liqueur, Matt's expression remained neutral despite the cynical thought that work must be quite a bit more pleasant for those colleagues lucky enough to work in this district. Others might have liked the glimpse into this better world, but to Matt, the demonstrative affluence of the large, nearly flawless Pre-pulse rooms only brought out the bleak, narrow hopelessness of his usual clientele's homes. And while others just might have fantasized about living in this luxury, to Matt it only made harshly obvious the chasm between those who blithely enjoyed cake while all the others hungered for bread.

Yet here he was, investigating a cook accused of having disappeared with a piece of family jewelry while the desks at his precinct were overflowing with the files of gang shootings and armed robberies. Had the call come from any other part of town, like from Matt's regular, run-down, gang-dominated district, they just would have added it onto the growing list of minor incidents never to be looked at. But if the call came from Seattle's high and mighty, dining with the chief of police, you'd better not make them wait.

Even after three years of watching corruption corrode the police department, the thought made Matt flinch. He still couldn't get used to his own ambivalent role in this failing system, protecting those who had the money and power – and still he sat here, a delicate china cup in his hand as he faced the family behind Seattle's most influential company.

"So, Mrs. Cale, last night you discovered that a golden brooch was missing from your jewelry case…" Matt glanced down at the notes he'd taken at the station. "It was late, so you decided not to do anything yet and went to bed. But when your cook,. Rita Mendez, was absent this morning and couldn't be found anywhere you suspected that she must have taken it."

Mrs. Cale's critically appraising look wasn't that of a woman who hesitated to speak her mind, but nevertheless it was her husband who answered first, folding his arms over a body that still took good food for granted. "That's correct."

Even if he hadn't occasionally spotted Jonas Cale's self­-important face in the media, being praised about his company's exceptional success, there wouldn't have been any question about him being the master of the house. From the very moment Matt had been led into the room the scene had been dominated by the half-bald man who was clearly used to giving orders.

"And you say the stolen object was…? " His professional tone never failing, Matt took up the questioning again, the short pauses between his questions deliberately stoking his interviewees' vague discomfort.

This time the wife answered. Unlike Mr. Cale's matter of fact tone, her words were drawn out, as if suffering from the state of the world.

"A golden brooch with rubies from the early 1800s, inspired by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. This alone makes it extraordinary, irreplaceable… but you need to understand, officer," her sternly admonishing tone revealed that she didn't expect him to, "this isn't just some ordinary antique jewelry, it's an important part of the Cale family heritage. The brooch has been passed on for generations, ever since William Cale bought it for his wife when he was over in Europe1906, visiting the Milano world exhibit."

Looking for confirmation, she glanced over to her husband who nodded with the cool confidence of the business man, to failing to bring up the economic aspect. "Before the Pulse its worth was estimated around ten thousand."

Outwardly unfazed by such a sum that was enough to buy a new life in Canada for a family of four, Matt went on, "And apart from her disappearance, is there any proof that Mrs. Mendez has indeed taken it?"

Cale uttered a long, suffering sigh, glancing at his watch in demonstrative impatience. "Trust me, Officer, we would have liked to believe in her innocence, we really would…but then we found this…"

His manicured hand with the golden signet ring reached behind his back, putting a slim CD case on the coffee table between them. "This is from the surveillance camera in the upstairs corridor leading out of our private rooms. You'll see how it clearly shows Rita coming out of our bedroom – where she had no reason to be at all, I may add. Her hand is hiding something small… like a piece of jewelry…"

Matt had heard enough peculiarities over the years to maintain his politely blank expression, only a subtly lifted eyebrow indicating his surprise at the unusually intimate placement of the camera.

Cale's smirk at Matt's faint irritation was almost triumphantly amused. "Not quite as neurotic as you might think, Officer Sung. As you may know," his tone made clear that he expected Matt and the whole Northwest to do so, "my company is in the electronics business… we develop microchips and processors for computers and electronic devices of all kinds."

All hint of amusement gone, the other man fixed Matt with a cool, calculating stare, his low voice demanding respect. "For the sake of my company, I have to ask you for strict confidentiality on this. Only my family and a few researchers at Cale Industries know… but that camera is the very first, very basic prototype of our new face recognition product. A micro version was installed into a lampshade just this week."

Before he could control the impulse, Matt's head went up in surprise. It wasn't the first time he'd heard of the combination of video surveillance and face recognition software, even though in the last few years the idea had been forgotten. Early in 2009, though, Seattle's mayor had gone public with his vision of building a seamless surveillance network that would use the countless cameras in stores and public places, train stations and airports to make it possible to track everybody, everywhere. The project had been heatedly discussed, drawing the protest of those who feared misuse as they warned the public of a "Big Brother" state.

But before any decision had been reached, the Pulse had wiped out all those high-tech applications, throwing police work back to the very basics. Only this year, with the arrival of a new mayor, famous for his corrupt manipulations and ruthlessly brutal approach to running the city, law enforcement officers like Matt had seen their equipment slowly start to improve again.

"We had a bit of a setback with the Pulse, of course, losing most of our data and research as well as the initial prototype, but we're at it again and we're expecting to go on the market in about five years."

Momentarily distracted from Cale's droning voice, Matt lowered his gaze to his notebook, not thrilled at the notion that the people now ruling the city, with no other interest than filling their own pockets, might be getting their hands on such a system.

Unaware of Matt's discomfort, Cale continued, the unconcerned pride in his scheme giving an involuntary insight into the family dynamics. "And this new model… it's supposed to recognize persons even from older photos, so it was a logical choice to first test it in our house, where we have some privacy and only a few people, together with lots of photographic material for comparison from family albums…"

Matt was itching with the temptation to find out more about possible buyers, yet knowing that any additional questions would seem suspiciously out of place, he moved on. "Would Mrs. Mendez, be able to sell the brooch. Could she even find a buyer?"

That from all the valuable and more inconspicuous items in the house Rita Mendez would have taken such a rare piece, so obviously connected to the family, puzzled Matt. Not only was it odd for a long-time employee to risk her secure job, moreover the deed spoke of contacts to Seattle's more dubious art dealers that seemed unfitting for this apparently ordinary cook.

To Mrs. Cale, however, this oddity seemingly hadn't occurred yet. Frowning slightly, she instead steered the focus back to her own issues. "Of course it hurts me to lose such an unusual piece… but what's just as bad is the broken trust, the idea that all these years we had a thief under our roof. It's the ingratitude that bothers me, Officer Sung, the knowledge that someone we've had in our house for more than 20 years just walked away with our possessions."

Mr. Cale felt obliged to chime in, sharing his wife's aggravation. "Someone whom we offered a shelter in these dangerous times, trusted with our children... I'm asking you, officer, where can we feel safe now if not even in our own houses?"

The other man's tone was firm and accusatory, his question rhetorical … but Matt wasn't fooled: There was a flicker of disturbance in Cale's eyes, revealing that fear seen now in the faces of the privileged when venturing out of their secured neighborhoods. It was the old story, the few fearing the many, the many despising the few, the system held together by repression and violence.

Matt let Cale talk, not so much listening to his demands to clean up with Seattle's 'mob of beggars, squatters and shoplifters' but to the undertones and gestures, waiting for anything that might give substance to his edgy gut-feeling. As he leaned back into the stiff sofa, Matt widened his focus to gauge the reaction of the two young men remaining in the room after the maid had hurried in and out with their coffee.

Keeping in the background as he casually leant against the bookshelves that spanned the far end of the room, the older of the two naturally stood out in this environment of smug satisfaction. About Matt's age but half a head taller, he had that kind of attractiveness that couldn't be just explained by simply the good looks of his lean, athletic built and blond, unruly hair.

There was a vibe of reigned-in energy in the way he kept his gaze to the floor, his eyes behind the silver-rimmed glasses refusing to make contact as if afraid that somebody would read his mind, be drawn into his intensity.

Just by standing there he set himself apart from his parents and had been silent so far, only the occasional tense twitch around his mouth giving away his disagreement. Even though he hadn't acknowledged Matt apart from his short, polite greeting, Matt had no doubt that this guy was the one observing the scene most closely, the only person here that was his equal and might be able to see behind his neutral 'officer face'.

Then there was the younger son, not quite yet grown out of his lanky teenage features. Even though he shared the easy handsomeness that had skipped their father, his agreeable niceness put him at risk of going unnoticed next to his brother's upright absoluteness. Folded into an antique armchair, his glance kept going to the tall, blonde figure next to him as if looking for the guidance of the older one who seemed deeply centered in himself. Unlike his brother, the brown-haired son observed the officer in their living room with silent interest, his gentle eyes the only genuinely friendly expression Matt had encountered in the Cale household.

Unable to resist his kindness, Matt gave the boy a half-smile, wistfully amazed at the sheltered innocence lingering there in someone only a few years younger. Then he interrupted Mrs. Cale's ongoing laments about how difficult it would be to find a replacement with Rita's experience for a final question. "So Mrs. Mendez seems to have disappeared Saturday night and nobody has heard of her since?

Cale nodded. "We even called her home number and we asked Tilda, the maid, who seems to know her quite well. But nobody has spoken to her since around five in the afternoon yesterday."

Having heard enough, Matt decisively closed his notebook, not allowing himself a single crack in his professional demeanor. "Alright then… I'd like to talk to all of your household, one by one, just to make sure nothing is missed."

"Whatever you think is necessary." Cale's tone was polite, carrying the suave demeanor of somebody used to dealing with the authorities. Only that fine line on his forehead now tensing into a frown indicated that he considered further questioning a nuisance after his opinion had been heard.

xxxx to be continued xxxx

Extra points to those who found the reference to that alleged Marie Antoinette quote:-)


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer**_: Don't own Dark Angel

**_A/N_**: Apologies for the unlikely case that there's still anybody out there reading. I just couldn't get myself into that creative, imaginative writing mood the last year. This chapter though has been sitting on my computer for almost two years, occasionally being rewritten and never really what I wanted, but... I'll just throw it out now.

xxxxx

**The Cale Mansion, Sunday, August 5****th****. 2012**

Matt had to admit that the the Cales put up with himself with smug, impeccable politeness. He had no illusions though that it had anything to do with his unimpressive young cop self. They simply knew it was easiest to just go along with his interrogations... just as they knew that the chief of police was only a phone call away.

Leaning back for a moment into the sofa's stiff, unyielding leather, he tried to ignore how out of place he felt on this oversized thing that probably was worth more than he'd earned in the last five years. He needed to focus on the interviews... There had been something about that older son, Junior, some kind of vibrating unrest in the way his hands had been crammed into his pockets, annoyed almost. _ As if he was holding back while his uncle was there..._

A knock resonated through the subtly rose-scented air and Matt looked up expectantly to see the heavy door slide open. Junior's tall figure entered with purposefully determined steps that had already grown out of his teenage brother's lankiness.

Matt gestured for him to sit down, pretending to go through his notes as he observed the other's reaction to having the police in his home. There was a lot to notice about the young man who settled into the antique armchair with careless, unthinking familiarity: The clothes, new and of pre-Pulse quality yet without the the signs and labels that distinguished the better-off, the way he moved so naturally among the antique furniture, his carefully spiked hair that reminded Matt of pre-Pulse commercials.

_Must be nice to live here... No worries about grocery bills and the rent... no two months and three weeks of giving up the after work beer for buying a toy truck..._

It would have been easy to dismiss this guy as just another spoiled rich kid, sharing is brother's protected innocence … and yet there was something about him that wasn't as easily deciphered as his younger brother's curiously smiling sweetness.

Alone, without his aunt and uncle's loud dominance, Cale seemed less tense, even though he was still guarded, still observed Matt wordlessly. Where his father had treated Matt with calculating arrogance, not seeing much more than a faceless uniform, this guy seemed to take in every detail of Matt's appearance, every small movement… almost as if Matt was the one to be interrogated.

His observing alertness disturbed Matt's routine and made him change his tactic in the last, unthinking second. He could have just gone through the basic questions with the usual detached professionalism … yet something told him that he would be rewarded for a more personal tone. "I figure Junior isn't your real name?"

His intuition was right. Cale acknowledged the question with a quick smirk, wry and resigned as if he'd long given up rebelling against a name that must be belittling coming from his self-important father. "Logan."

The smirk didn't linger, but his face eased up, appreciating being treated with less formality than Cale senior. Matt's next question was absent routine, wondering what it was like to grow up with this father, with the company's responsibilities. "So… you're Mr. Cale's oldest son?"

Cale's head jerked up.

"I am _not_ his son." The answer was immediate, every word fierce and deliberate.

Bemused Matt watched as the other man's face slipped out out of the Cale household's mannerly nonchalance to reveal the anger and hurt usually safely bundled away. _So that's why h__e'd kept apart earlier... _

It didn't last. Before Matt had chance to react, Cale's emotions once again were safely covered up by that mask of blank politeness that seemed to be second nature. "Jonas is my uncle."

Matt nodded slowly, his expression calmly interested. _A missing cook, disappeared jewelry and a nephew who doesn't want to be his uncle's son... _Unwanted, he felt himself slipping into empathy, offering an apology for his rash assumption. "I'm sorry. For some reason I thought that Mr. Cale had two sons..."

The other man didn't ask how Matt knew. Cale Industries was known to everybody who followed the city gossip about the high and mighty, about the mayor and those making sure he was reelected, about money changing hands when the bureaucracy didn't work fast enough.

"He does." Cale's tone had softened, a tired apology for his outburst. "You mistake me with Jonathan, my older cousin."

"Sorry about that." Matt offered again, even though he didn't feel sorry at all about his useful misassumption. "I haven't seen him yet, your other cousin… Doesn't he live here?"

"Oh, he does. Some years ago Jonas and Margo turned the gardener's house, back there", Cale's nod pointed to the green peeking through the crème white of the curtains, "into a loft..." He shrugged and as if talking about the next-door neighbor added, "I don't know where he is though, haven't seen him all week."

Matt was silent, waiting for more. _He seemed close enough to his younger cousin to make me think they're brothers... but doesn't care at all about Jonathan's whereabouts? _

"I think my uncle mentioned something about a business trip to Canada, but you'll have to ask him for the details on that." The last was offered almost reluctantly, as if wasn't his place to reveal it.

_Business trips to Ca__nada, in these times... _Again Matt didn't press Cale, giving him time to sort his thoughts. But the other man remained silent, his focused face not giving away anything and so Matt went back to his usual interrogation routine.

_xxx_

As their conversation went on, standard questions being countered with standard answers, Jonathan's existence remained the only interesting information Matt could draw out of the young Cale. Logan himself had spent the weekend at a friend's, trying to manipulate a home-built satellite dish into letting them watch the Canadian ice hockey finals. In consequence he hadn't seen anything, neither the cook nor the brooch nor anything else even halfway useful.

Disappointed Matt stood up, signaling the end of the interview._ Something feels off here, Cale Senior's boisterous loudness, Junior's reserved distance..._

_Everything_, he tried to convince himself as Cale turned around and headed for the door, _points to the cook, everything but my own gut-feeling_… And that very gut feeling had been wrong before, almost costing him his job once.

_I should be home with my family, not wasting time on such a clear-cut case. Just because they're not all happy family doesn't mean they hide some dark secret..._

"She didn't do it. Rita… she didn't take the brooch." Cale's hoarse voice cut into Matt's self-reasoning. Standing there with the barrier of the coffee table between them, Junior's confidence sounded defensive with pessimistic mistrust.

Matt almost grinned. _Finally... _Hiding his surprise, he challenged Cale's conviction. "Proofs say she did."

Something in Cale's composure changed, losing that impenetrable absoluteness that had raised Matt's interest in first place. Now, he appraised Matt with unfocused eyes, his indecision obvious. Finally though, as his fidgeting hand absently ruined the roughly combed hair, his sense of justice seemed to take over.

"That brooch…. it belonged to my mother. That story my aunt told you about it being an old family piece…, she 'forgot'," the tired sarcasm hid years of contempt , "to mention that it's always passed on from mother to oldest son when he proposes to his future wife …"

"So it would have been yours, one day?," Matt inquired in a reflex of professional suspicion. _ What if he took the brooch himself, only taking what was his by tradition? Still, that didn't explain the disappearance of the cook..._

Rubbing his forehead with long fingers, Cale massaged away a frown as Matt's inquiry brought him back from the tangle of hurt and loyalties that was family. "I guess… ," a tired sigh, as if not reclaiming the brooch was his own shortcoming, "Should still be, actually."

Silent for a moment, he stared down at the ebony coffee table as Matt pondered this new constellation. _Why would he just give up his mother's belonging? He sure doesn't seem to lack the backbone to stand up against his uncle. _

With a decisive move of his head, Cale caught himself, continuing his initial thought." But Rita… she never would have stolen anything that belonged to my mother. My mum, she used to spend a lot of time there in the kitchen, back when it was still our house, when she expected guests or just wanted company. Except for me, she used to have all the house to herself, when my father was working late."

He smiled, slipping back into his boyhood-self as he recalled those faraway memories, some reaching back even before his time. Matt knew to sit very still, listening and observing how Cale's vigilant rigidness softened. "And I remember… when the two of them were together, there was always joking and laughter… And then, after my mother's death, Rita used to tell me stories about her… "

Simply the way his features softened now after the careless indifference for his aunt and uncle told Matt more than Cale had meant to reveal.

_Interesting loyalties, speaking up for the the cook, against his family... Not quite the right way to make his uncle happy._

Abruptly looking up, Cale's stare fixed Matt, defiantly open. "She didn't take it. Rita didn't take the brooch."

There it was again, that pure conviction, paired with the trust and loyalty of a lifetime. _It would be so easy to believe him, not to question that allu__ring sincerity__..._

But Matt didn't fail to see that other part of Cale, the barely grown-up young man who judged the present by brittle, fading childhood memories. In the end, reduced to bare facts, his claims weren't different from those Matt heard day after day, from people who in their denial clinged to old beliefs and loyalties.

But still, everything Cale said confirmed Matt's vague suspicion that this apparently so simple case was a bit… too simple. So far though, as long as there was nothing substantial, it was too early to share his doubts with anyone. He offered Cale his hand again, ending the interview. "Thanks for your help, Mr. Cale. We'll do our best to find out what happened."

"_We'll do our best…"_ Matt would have uttered the words with the same sincerity to the next homeless guy on the street as he had to Cale... and yet this was their standard phrase, synonymous with the fact that they were too overworked to keep up, too understaffed to fight the epidemic of crime.

_My intuition and the young Cale's word against the accusations of the almighty Jonas Cale. Smartest thing would be to just look the other way... _

"I appreciate it." Cale's serious tone wasn't that of someone who had grown up carefree and sheltered, used to getting his way. His eyes, sober and restrained, had the piercing serenity of someone who'd seen too many people capitulate.

This time it was Matt who turned first and headed for the door, feet sinking into the thick, soft carpet. He left young Cale standing there, his hands again hiding in his pockets.

xxx TBC xxx


End file.
